Dumbly

//ˈdʌmli// adv, slang

adv, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    In a silent way.

    "On the flat behind the mill, dawn-rising Chinamen shogged with nimble bare feet under their yoke-linked watering-cans. These busy brethren, meeting sometimes on the same narrow track, would pause, ant-like, seemingly to dumbly regard one another and their burdens, then, still ant-like, pass silently to their work."

  2. 2
    In an unsmart way. derogatory, informal
Adverb
  1. 1
    mutely wordnet
  2. 2
    stupidly or insensitively wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
denselyobtuselyobtuselysilently

Example

More examples

"For as the young people went by with their despatch-boxes, awfully glad to be free, proud too, dumbly, of stepping this famous pavement, joy of a kind, cheap, tinselly, if you like, but all the same rapture, flushed their faces."

Etymology

From dumb + -ly.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.